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We are at the end of Day One of our ten-day tour of Israel — slightly sunburned, almost exhausted, and more than ready to tackle all that Day Two promises to provide. I’m mainly just going to post pictures here for the next week or so; there’s too much going on to do any deep reflecting in this space right now. As always, just click on the picture to get the full size and click on it a second time to blow it up. Just know that we’ve got a great group — 18 from Amarillo (Brice and Becky are from Amarillo, NOT California), 8 from Colorado, and 2 from Tennessee — and we’re having a blast.

We began our day at Herod’s palace and government center at Caesarea on the Sea, taking in the massive theater and hippodrome, the palace and swimming pool, the Byzantine and Crusader structures, and the eight-mile aqueduct from Mt. Carmel. Then we drove the eight miles to see the site where our God sent fire to burn up Elijah’s soaking wet altar, ate lunch at a Druze restaurant on the way down, walked around Megiddo, the traditional site of the final war between good and evil, and spent some time at the Church of the First Miracle in Cana.

Our middle daughter, Valerie, is here with me in Israel — first ever trip over here for her. So, as you can imagine, a lot of the pictures you see here over the next several days are going to feature her. What a great blessing it is to share this wonderful land and its inspirational sites with her!

Now we’re in our hotel in Tiberias, right on the west banks of the Sea of Galilee! We’ve had a nice dinner, some of us have strolled the boardwalk by the lake and had some ice cream, and now we’re getting ready to turn in.

No late night Dr Pepper for a while. No Mexican food or Seinfeld or cell phone calls or texts. But it was 104-degrees today, the wind was blowing at 35-miles-per-hour, and it’s dusty. It still feels like home.